"This costs $49.95 and it's worth every penny,'' he said. "Now go get the ball!''

Minutes later, Martin Seiferth, a 6-foot-10 freshman center from Berlin who is still getting accustomed to the physical nature of NCAA basketball, got bumped out of rebounding position.

"What do they use for money over there?'' Altman said after stopping practice again.

"In Germany? The euro,'' Seiferth said.

"Well, no wonder,'' Altman said, again holding the ball up. "I've been talking dollars and cents, and you didn't know how much this is worth. ... Now go get the ball!''

This weekend, the Ducks will open the regular season with three games, the first against North Dakota State on Friday, in the BTI Invitational at McArthur Court. Finally, after months of transfers and tribulations, the Ducks will be able to go get the ball when it counts - in Altman's first official game as Oregon coach.

"This is what we came here to do, just play basketball,'' forward E.J. Singler said. "I'm just excited for the season to start.''

Altman has his hands full. Until guard Jay-R Strowbridge returned from a broken nose and dislocated thumb this week - he will play but wear a mask this weekend - he was practicing with eight healthy scholarship players as he tried to implement his new system.

Jeremy Jacob, the team's leading returning rebounder and best inside presence at 6-8, will miss the tournament after having arthroscopic knee surgery on Oct. 27. Tyrone Nared, the other 6-8 player and a junior college transfer, missed considerable practice time with an accelerated heartbeat and because of a death in the family.

And this was after four players transferred and another, under NCAA investigation, decided to play professionally in Israel.

Those are the excuses. Now it's time to get the ball.

"It's been a long journey, but we're here now,'' said Strowbridge, a transfer who will man the backcourt with point guard Malcolm Armstead and Garrett Sim, both juniors, as well as freshman point guard Johnathan Loyd.

Singler and Joevan Catron, the lone senior along with Strowbridge, are the forwards, along with Nared and the tantalizingly athletic Teondre Williams.

In a perfect world, Seiferth would redshirt this season - for physical and cultural reasons - but the Ducks do not have that luxury.

The coaches have been working diligently with Seiferth on all aspects of big man play. They flip hundreds of entry passes in to Seiferth every practice, teaching him how to receive the ball and use the proper footwork to go to the basket with authority.

"I'm getting better every practice,'' Seiferth said.

It's the defense that is most foreign to him, and the physicality involved. And it's defense where perhaps Altman has the most work cut out for him. That and rebounding - the Ducks were last in the Pac-10 in rebounding margin last season in league games - especially in Jacob's absence.

"Definitely we need to focus more on defense,'' Strowbridge said. "Defense and rebounding win championships. So we're starting to focus on defense. We have a great offense. Defense, rebounding and effort are going to win us championships.''

Championships? Not much is expected of these Ducks, picked to finish a distant last in the Pac-10 preseason media poll.

"It's been a slow process,'' said Altman, keeping in check whatever expectations there may be. "We're throwing a lot at them, a lot of different things. So it's going to take a while.''

Even Singler didn't ooze optimism this week.

"There are going to be bumps in the road,'' Singler said. "There are peaks and valleys. You just have to get through them as a team - that's what makes a good team.

"With the new plays, with the coaches, with the new teammates, it's hard, but I think we've done a good job, and it's just time for the games to come around so we can put it to the test.''

Still, there is optimism surrounding the program. The Ducks move into the new Matthew Knight Arena on Jan. 13, and Altman collected signatures this week from a very good 2011 recruiting class - ESPN ranked it 18th in the nation - that includes five-star shooting guard Jabari Brown from Oakland, Calif.

So, in effect, the Ducks have something of a free pass this season. The "excuses'' are valid, and the future is bright. But that doesn't change the challenge of the present, and this group sorely wants to do more than simply get through a rebuilding year.

Altman said he doesn't know who his starting five will be, but it probably will look a lot like the unit that started last week's exhibition against Northwest Christian: Armstead, Sim, Williams, Singler and Catron.

The new coach will be looking for little things.

"We've got to improve,'' Altman said. "That's our biggest goal, just to get a little bit better each day and each game out. ... We've got a long ways to go, and so regardless of how each game comes out we have to make progress. We're going to go through a learning curve here, but we've got to make progress.''

That may mean passing the ball with two hands. Or staying on the floor when passing instead of getting caught in the air. Nobody knows how long it will take to learn the system or what the ceiling is for this group that enters the 2010-11 as one of the Pac-10's shorter teams with one of the shorter rosters.